1
. . . baby one more time
JENNIFER LEE
The bravest couples slow dance—but right now, there aren’t many.
Not this early in the night.
The cafeteria is dotted with denim jackets, denim overalls, and brightly colored slap bracelets, and parent chaperones stand guard at the exits. I don’t know why they bother. Hancock High held its first lock-in nearly a decade ago, right after a group of seniors died in a drunk driving accident. Now, in their memory—and in an effort to protect the current students from their own bad decisions—the night before graduation all students, teachers, and overly involved parents are—you guessed it—locked into the school overnight. It’s part dance, part fundraiser, part theater, and every lock-in begins with the drama club staging a car accident involving real cars and fake blood. Just to really send the message home.
That said, with the entire student body packed in like sardines, and someone—somewhere—guaranteed to sneak in cheap booze, everyone knows it will be a night to remember.
Like the Stanford prison experiment—but hornier.
Who’d be caught dead anywhere else?
The music warps to a synthy Ace of Base bop, and the makeshift dance floor swells with bodies. In the daytime, the cafeteria is crowded from wall to wall with circular plastic tables. But in honor of tonight’s festivities, the tables have been folded up against the windows to make space. Careful to dodge elbows, I hustle across the room and shimmy between two halved tables—where I’m startled to find I’m not the only one looking for a hiding place.
“Oops! Hi, Naomi.”
Naomi King blinks at me from behind an oversized pair of granny glasses. Silent. Although that’s not unusual for her. Usually, I’ll see Naomi in the hallway between classes, alone and walking alarmingly fast, with her face buried in an Anne Rice novel. Her thick hair is box-braided into pigtails, and her baby-pink overalls have a telltale smudge of sugar at the knee, most likely from when she was working the bake sale earlier tonight. I don’t know a ton of freshmen by name, but Naomi’s older sister, Melissa King, was an icon—homecoming queen, student senate vice president, Most Likely to Change the World, Best Smile—and Mel is currently on a full ride at Boston University.
“Scram, dweeb!”
I turn to see the Stern twins standing behind me protectively, each one a carbon copy of the other. The three of us are dressed in matching tube tops—Chloe in blue, Zoey in pink. I’m in black. Naomi disappears with a literal squeak, and even I’ll admit that I’m grateful for the rescue. The twins beckon for me to follow, and I realize they’ve managed to crack a window without our chaperones noticing. No small feat. They pass a joint from one manicured hand to the next, and we take turns exhaling through the gap.
“Don’t be such a hog, Chloe!”
“Hog? As if!”
I giggle and take a hit when Chloe offers it—and Zoey gives me her watermelon lip gloss to apply when I’m done. The twins are in the grade above me, but this year I effectively became the leader of our little trio. Although it could just be due to the fact that I’m three inches taller.
“Look who it is!”
We turn in unison, the motion just as synchronized as our outfits.
Andrew Garcia is as classically handsome as a guy can be. Tall and lean, long hair, thick eyebrows—one with his trademark scar down the center—and a smile that has curved many a final exam grade. Like the twins, Andrew is a junior. But he’s also one of those old-soul types who was held back after kindergarten and now gets along with everyone as a result. Like me, Andrew avoids the dance floor—shy, but on a mission.
“Andrew! Can’t believe you came.”
“Me neither.” He smiles that smile. “Although I hear getting out is the hard part.”
Chloe offers Andrew a hit, but he declines. Despite what you might expect, Andrew’s never been one for the party scene, and I’ve always liked that about him.
Even after everything that happened this semester.
“Relax, stud.” Zoey nudges him with her Keds. “It’s not like you’re on the team anymore. Live a little, yeah?”
Instead of responding, Andrew looks away—but this time I don’t copy him. I don’t need to, to know what he’s looking for: his team.
The team.
Here at Hancock, people only go to the football games to watch the cheerleaders drop other cheerleaders. Track and field had a bit of a renaissance, sure, but don’t get me started on soccer. Because for us, it’s always been the boys varsity lacrosse team at the center of our small-town universe. Each spring, the boys make headlines in the school, town, and state papers, and tonight, like always, they are wearing their electric-blue practice jerseys—plus a girl on each arm.
“Zoey, be nice,” Chloe chides. She flicks her twin on the boob.
“What? He’s not. Troy Richards saw to that—”
“Zoey!”
Andrew settles for a shrug. Suddenly, he reaches for the blunt, his hand lingering in mine. “Have you seen Sassi?” he asks.
“I thought I saw her drinking with the seniors,” Chloe offers. “Moose snuck in a keg.”
“Ha! Sassi DeLuca? I seriously doubt that—”
“Why? Is everything okay?”
Andrew nods and steps closer, his mouth brushing my ear. The music changes again, and I only catch a few words. But it’s enough.
“. . . somewhere? To talk?”
I blush—and Zoey and Chloe share a look.
I let Andrew take my hand, and we slip out of the cafeteria relatively undetected. With my height, I’m usually hunched over when I’m standing around the guys my age—physically trying to fit into an unseen mold before I realize what I’m doing, or why, or how I’m doing it. But Andrew and I are the exact same height, and with him I stand tall. In seconds, we fall into an easy rhythm, and we walk side by side through the school.
The entire first floor has been decorated with balloons and streamers in the red, white, and bright blue colors of our school, and each classroom we pass has a different activity meant to keep people awake for the duration of the twelve-hour lock-in. There’s face painting, balloon darts, an airbrush station and temporary tattoos, caricatures courtesy of someone’s dad’s midlife crisis, a cash grab machine, and even a carnival-style fishbowl toss—with real fish as prizes. Last year there was also a dunk tank, but that was quickly discontinued after a certain lax bro peed in it on a dare. Not that I’m naming any names.
I nod when Andrew indicates the south-side stairwell, and once inside, I push him to the wall—“talking” pretty passionately. Even by my standards. Andrew’s mouth tastes sweet and sour, like fake cherries and long summers at my parents’ place on Cape Cod. But—
“Jennifer . . . ?”
Oops.
I bring Andrew’s hands to my waist as the fluorescents zip-zap on above us, and I shiver as his thumb traces the edge of my silk top. For a moment, Andrew forgets whatever he was going to ask. Or two moments—almost three. When he does pull away, I can’t tell which of us regrets it more.
Then—gradually—it dawns on me.
“Wait. Did you actually want to talk?”
“Yeah. It’s about Troy—”
“Yo! Get a room, fartknockers!”
We look up.
Tatum Stein is perched in the window above us, a cigarette in her teeth and her Doc Martens on the railing for balance. As far as I know, no one in our school, or in the entire town of Hancock, likes Tatum Stein. Also, no one knows how old she is. Tatum was a senior when I was a freshman, and I honestly think I’ll be graduating before she does. Tatum is single-handedly responsible for supplying people at our school with their drug of choice—uppers, downers, pills, and powders. Not to mention booze—and lots of it. Last fall, Principal Clancy conducted a locker search the day before Halloween, and there’s a rumor that Tatum only avoided expulsion by hiding her stash in her vagina.
“What are you doing here, Tatum?”
Tatum draws a dick on the glass with her pinkie.
“Troy Richards stood me up. Again,” she mutters, waving a telltale plastic baggy in the air. “I saw your boyfriend earlier for a delivery, and he told me to wait here for my payout.”
Boyfriend.
The word lances through me like an electric shock—just like Tatum knew it would. She snorts at my obvious reaction and flicks her cigarette, letting the ash fall on Andrew. He scowls, shakes out his flow, and gestures upstairs to the next level. Technically, no one is supposed to leave the first floor during the lock-in, especially not without telling a chaperone first. But that doesn’t stop him.
“Tell Troy I say hello!” Tatum calls after us, bitter.
We let the door slam shut in answer.
Alone again, Andrew and I stand awkwardly outside the library. Here, the hullabaloo from the cafeteria is muted, and unlike downstairs, all the lights on the third floor are off. I can barely see his face in the darkness.
“You okay?”
Andrew takes my hand, and—not for the first time—I’m surprised by how soft his skin is. Because the way the varsity boys act on the field, I always thought their hands would be Swiss-cheesed. But he proved me wrong the first time we kissed.
Troy Richards, that is, not Andrew.
“That was awkward,” I murmur.
“Yeah. That’s one word for it.”
My heart is still pounding in both ears from the kiss. At least, I tell myself that’s the reason. Because of that, I don’t automatically recognize the sound of footsteps. When I do, I tug Andrew behind a set of bulky trash bins.
“Who is it?” Andrew hisses.
I shush him quiet.
Peeking around the bins, I see what Andrew can’t—Sassi DeLuca. Hancock’s perfect little Polly Pocket come to life, with twice the beauty and brains. Regardless of the weather, Sassi always seems to be wearing the same crimson Harvard sweatshirt—as if she needs to remind the rest of us how big and bright her future is. She glides by in her platform sandals without noticing us, her ponytail obnoxiously high, with zero clue that her timing is the absolute worst. Glad to know some things never change.
But where the heck is she coming from?
“It’s no one,” I lie, glancing at Andrew. “Can we go somewhere? To . . . talk . . . in private?”
Andrew hesitates, clearly thinking hard about something, then bobs his head up and down in agreement.
